[Fanzine Focus XXVI] Stray Virassa

On the tail of the Old School Renaissance has come another movement—the rise of the fanzine. Although the fanzine—a nonprofessional and nonofficial publication produced by fans of a particular cultural phenomenon, got its start in Science Fiction fandom, in the gaming hobby it first started with Chess and Diplomacy fanzines before finding fertile ground in the roleplaying hobby in the 1970s. Here these amateurish publications allowed the hobby a public space for two things. First, they were somewhere that the hobby could voice opinions and ideas that lay outside those of a game’s publisher. Second, in the Golden Age of roleplaying when the Dungeon Masters were expected to create their own settings and adventures, they also provided a rough and ready source of support for the game of your choice. Many also served as vehicles for the fanzine editor’s house campaign and thus they showed another Dungeon Master and group played said game. This would often change over time if a fanzine accepted submissions. Initially, fanzines were primarily dedicated to the big three RPGs of the 1970s—Dungeons & Dragons, RuneQuest, and Traveller—but fanzines have appeared dedicated to other RPGs since, some of which helped keep a game popular in the face of no official support. Since 2008 with the publication of Fight On #1, the Old School Renaissance has had its own fanzines. The advantage of the Old School Renaissance is that the various Retroclones draw from the same source and thus one Dungeons & Dragons-style RPG is compatible with another. This means that the contents of one fanzine will be compatible with the Retroclone that you already run and play even if not specifically written for it. Labyrinth Lord and Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay have proved to be popular choices to base fanzines around, as has Swords & Wizardry.

Stray Virassa: The Lost and Fourteenth Hell is a little different. Penned by Zedeck Siew—author of Lorn Song of the Bachelor—and drawn by Munkao, it is the fifth title published by the A Thousand Thousand Islands imprint, a Southeast Asian-themed fantasy visual world-building project, one which aims to draw from regional folklore and history to create a fantasy world truly rooted in the region’s myths, rather than a set of rules simply reskinned with a fantasy culture. The result of the project to date is eight fanzines, plus appendices, each slightly different, and each focusing on discrete settings which might be in the same world, but are just easily be separate places in separate worlds. What sets the series apart is the aesthetic sparseness of its combination of art and text. The latter describes the place, its peoples and personalities, its places, and its strangeness with a very simple economy of words. Which is paired with the utterly delightful artwork which captures the strangeness and exoticism of the particular setting and brings it alive. Barring a table of three (or more) for determining random aspects that the Player Characters might encounter each entry in the series is systemless, meaning that each can be using any manner of roleplaying games and systems, whether that is fantasy or Science Fiction, the Old School Renaissance or not.

The first, MR-KR-GR The Death-Rolled Kingdom, described the Death-Rolled Kingdom, built on the remains of great drowned city, now ruled by crocodiles in lazy, benign fashion, they police the river, and their decrees outlaw the exploration of the ruins of MR-KR-GR, and they sometimes hire adventurers. The second, Kraching, explored the life of a quiet, sleepy village alongside a great forest, dominated by cats of all sizes and known for its beautiful carvings of the wood taken from the forest. The third, Upper Heleng: The Forest Beloved by Time, takes the reader into a forest where its husband Time moves differently and the gods dictate the seasons, Leeches stalk you and steal from you that which you hold dear, and squirrels appear to chatter and gossip—if you listen. Andjang: The Queen on Dog Mountain, the fourth, explores a vampire kingdom desperate for trade.

Stray Virassa: The Lost and Fourteenth Hell is another island, lost at the tail of an archipelago. Ironically it is known as Lodestone, for it cannot be found or reached by conventional means of navigation—a ship has to set sail in a random direction and get lost. Which does not always work… Yet many have reasons to go there, primarily to gain access to the skills and abilities of the magicians of the isle, which is said to be very great indeed. Such petitioners typically have a great need, for the price charged by the magicians is also great. The strangeness of Stray Virassa is primary presented through NPCs, first those who are travelling to the island, second through the magicians themselves, and lastly, through the citizens of the island’s port city, Ka-Lak-Kak—and this is done in two ways. First in random tables to generate NPCs and second sample ready to portray NPCs.

So a traveller to Stray Virassa could be going there because they have been cursed by a business rival that whenever they speak, they cough up maggots. They do not seek a cure, but a reciprocal curse. Besides their strangely fouled mouth, they are known for the crooked wig which constantly slips from their sweat-slicked head, and whilst travelling light, their neck is heavy with brass amulets to ward off bad spirits. The magicians include Diffa Fu, an overly worldly twelve-year-old and fertility specialist who can put a baby in any women—or man, who also collects skulls and whose word is final for any descendant of such skulls she owns!

Ka-Lak-Kak itself is a ghost city and city of ghosts, solid during rainstorms, transparent under direct sunlight, which might lead to the disappearance of a floor several storeys high! It is the Fourteenth Hell, the Hell reserved for those lost at sea. None of these have feet, but simply fade away below the knee, so in life, one might have been a soldier who died fighting pirates and is armed with a crossbow with a string made of ectoplasm which fires bolts of flame, and as a ghost, has a hand whose fingers end in crab claws that they constantly click. Now, they herd the floating lanterns that replace ghosts too lazy to manifest and are philosophical about their new existence, except for a hatred of their husband, who constantly cheats on them. The irony of the soldier’s situation is that Ka-Lak-Kak and Stray Virassa is a pirate port. Not to traditional pirates, but ghost pirates whose raids are never planned and always unguided. When ghost pirates weigh anchor, their boat capsizes. Only to right itself somewhere on the water, be it a river canal or a mountain lake, to raid and reave before capsizing their vessel again and return home! If the wreck of a lost ship can be found—pirate or not, the nails which hold its thick planks together can be harvested and if used to construct another ship, will ensure that the new vessel never sinks—for no ship ever sinks twice. 

Ka-Lak-Kak and thus Stray Virassa is also home to the largest settlement of Mu-folk, outside of ancient, lost Mu, including its last potentate, the indolent Xeng Xin, whose days are spent running spirit dens and taking his share of the island’s pirate raids when not in a haze of opium. He also occasionally still claims that Mu is rightfully his, though he has no word from the old country in some time. Perhaps a loyal lieutenant might employ someone to bring news and even an individual from the former kingdom? As with previous issues, accompanying Stray Virassa: The Lost and Fourteenth Hell is an insert, a foldout poster of extra tables. These include tables for determining the details of ghosts who have wandered the sea-floor for decades, and a drop table of ‘Memories of Mu’ to flesh out questions that the Player Characters might ask whilst on Stray Virassa.

Physically, Stray Virassa: The Lost and Fourteenth Hell is a slim booklet which possesses the lovely simplicity of the Thousand Thousand Isles, both in terms of the words and the art. The illustrations are exquisite and the writing delightfully succinct and easy to grasp.

As with entries in the Thousand Thousand Isles series, Stray Virassa: The Lost and Fourteenth Hell is easy to use once the Player Characters get there. There are hooks and plots which the Game Master could develop and engage the players and their characters with, and the setting is easy to adapt to the world of the Game Master’s choice, whether that is a domain on the Demiplane of Dread that is Ravenloft for Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition or a remote kingdom in nautical setting such as Green Ronin Publishing’s Freeport: The City of Adventure or even a lost isle in H.P. Lovecraft’s Dreamlands, whether for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition or another roleplaying game. However it is used, if the Game Master can get her Player Characters to its borders—and its randomly accessed nature makes that relatively easy—Stray Virassa: The Lost and Fourteenth Hell is creepy and magical and weird, simply, but evocatively and beautifully presented and written pirate and ghost haven intentionally lost.

—oOo—

The great news is that is Upper Heleng: The Forest Beloved by Time, MR-KR-GR The Death-Rolled Kingdom, Kraching, Andjang: The Queen on Dog Mountain, Stray Virassa: The Lost and Fourteenth Hell, and the others in the Thousand Thousand Isles setting are now available outside of Malaysia. Details can be found here.

[Fanzine Focus XXV] Andjang

On the tail of the Old School Renaissance has come another movement—the rise of the fanzine. Although the fanzine—a nonprofessional and nonofficial publication produced by fans of a particular cultural phenomenon, got its start in Science Fiction fandom, in the gaming hobby it first started with Chess and Diplomacy fanzines before finding fertile ground in the roleplaying hobby in the 1970s. Here these amateurish publications allowed the hobby a public space for two things. First, they were somewhere that the hobby could voice opinions and ideas that lay outside those of a game’s publisher. Second, in the Golden Age of roleplaying when the Dungeon Masters were expected to create their own settings and adventures, they also provided a rough and ready source of support for the game of your choice. Many also served as vehicles for the fanzine editor’s house campaign and thus they showed another DM and group played said game. This would often change over time if a fanzine accepted submissions. Initially, fanzines were primarily dedicated to the big three RPGs of the 1970s—Dungeons & Dragons, RuneQuest, and Traveller—but fanzines have appeared dedicated to other RPGs since, some of which helped keep a game popular in the face of no official support. Since 2008 with the publication of Fight On #1, the Old School Renaissance has had its own fanzines. The advantage of the Old School Renaissance is that the various Retroclones draw from the same source and thus one Dungeons & Dragons-style RPG is compatible with another. This means that the contents of one fanzine will compatible with the Retroclone that you already run and play even if not specifically written for it. Labyrinth Lord and Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay have proved to be popular choices to base fanzines around, as has Swords & Wizardry.

Andjang: The Queen on Dog Mountain is a little different. Penned by Zedeck Siew—author of Lorn Song of the Bachelor—and drawn by Munkao, it is the fourth title published by the A Thousand Thousand Islands imprint, a Southeast Asian-themed fantasy visual world-building project, one which aims to draw from regional folklore and history to create a fantasy world truly rooted in the region’s myths, rather than a set of rules simply reskinned with a fantasy culture. The result of the project to date is eight fanzines, plus appendices, each slightly different, and each focusing on discrete settings which might be in the same world, but are just easily be separate places in separate worlds. What sets the series apart is the aesthetic sparseness of its combination of art and text. The latter describes the place, its peoples and personalities, its places, and its strangeness with a very simple economy of words. Which is paired with the utterly delightful artwork which captures the strangeness and exoticism of the particular setting and brings it alive. Barring a table of three (or more) for determining random aspects that the Player Characters might encounter each entry in the series is systemless, meaning that each can be using any manner of roleplaying games and systems, whether that is fantasy or Science Fiction, the Old School Renaissance or not.

The first, MR-KR-GR The Death-Rolled Kingdom, described the Death-Rolled Kingdom, built on the remains of great drowned city, now ruled by crocodiles in lazy, benign fashion, they police the river, and their decrees outlaw the exploration of the ruins of MR-KR-GR, and they sometimes hire adventurers. The second, Kraching, explored the life of a quiet, sleepy village alongside a great forest, dominated by cats of all sizes and known for its beautiful carvings of the wood taken from the forest. The third, Upper Heleng: The Forest Beloved by Time, takes the reader into a forest where its husband Time moves differently and the gods dictate the seasons, Leeches stalk you and steal from you that which you hold dear, and squirrels appear to chatter and gossip—if you listen. the fourth takes you into the mountains.

What rumours do you hear from Andjang: The Queen on Dog Mountain? That it is taboo to put down old racing dogs, but bad luck to keep them, so they are sent to the dog heaven that is the Mountain. That you will never see a graveyard there. Instead the dead are dumped in their rice paddies, one corpse per field. Which why their rice crops are so rich. That witchery runs in the people’s blood and they like to buy minor curses from you. Andjang is a place of mystery, but its wan and thin inhabitants want to trade. They want metal goods, wine, fabrics, livestock especially, even slaves, and in return, their meaty black rice is known for its capacity to boost energy and the circulation of the blood, the region’s strangely red loam soil always guarantees that the next crop is a bumper one, and the rattan puppets that bud fruit from the top of their heads when a certain spell is cast. The puppet will obey anyone who eats the fruit, and the locals use them as ‘beasts of burden’ instead of the animals they strangely lack. Perhaps, the Player Characters can sign on as guards on Risala’s cattle train?

If the Player Characters visit Andjang, they will find the kingdom to be stranger than the rumours. None of the villages, each nestled in a valley below the mountains has any animals. Weapons, some murderous, some gossipy, others cranky, have settled into retirement in Andjang, but perhaps they might be traded or stolen out of retirement? The villagers live by three laws. The first is a blood tithe paid in a monthly parade. The second is the recognition of the kingdom’s boundary, marked by megaliths bearing the dog sigil, part of treaties signed with the gods which invading armies lose their way, carnivorous beasts losing their senses, wild spirits freezing… The third is obeisance to Andjang’s prices and princesses, their wishes are law, and they are the only ones who will arrange audiences with the Queen, their mother. And they appreciate gifts.

Yet untold numbers of the kingdom’s Royalty are dumped into the forest to die. There they learn to work together, then hunt to survive, and then they hunt each other. When they leave the forest, they are scarred, but worthy of a name. They are marked though—some have eyes that shine at night, loud joints that constantly pop, a servant trailing behind constantly touching the gold paint which covers them, a detachable head which can reattach to any decapitated corpse, and more.

The palace stand high atop a crag above the valleys with their single villages. Seemingly ruined, it is home to the languorous Queen who spends each day stretched out on a throne that is as much day bed as it is throne, accepting visitors and petitioners who have trailed their way up the mountain and waited weeks to see, her nights stretched out in her boudoir in the mountain cave behind the palace, her open air bath containing two pools. One is full of water, the other is of blood. Below, the caves stretch into the mountain, beginning with a grotto containing a lake of blood… Elsewhere in the palace, the kitchen appears connected to the palace gaol, the treasure house is full of weapons clamped to their stands and pardons from the lowlander cities, and every guest room has a tap out which flows blood. Time may seem to pass differently from room to the next, breathing and knocking seems to come from the walls, and children marked with a tattoo of open eye wander from room to room…

Besides a poster map of the palace, the Game Master is accorded table upon table to add detail and flavour to the encounters, personalities, and things found in the valleys and the palace. These add to the atmosphere of the kingdom, which is one of the oppressive Gothic, heavy on the suggestion that the Queen might be a vampire, but never openly stated. There is a creepy weird feeling throughout, of being watched, of blood being vital to the kingdom, of paranoia, and more. However, much like the earlier Upper Heleng: The Forest Beloved by Time, the issue with Andjang: The Queen on Dog Mountain is not immediately easy to use. Again because of the remote nature of the kingdom and because it is difficult to engage the Player Characters until they climb up to Andjang. That is its biggest weakness. It has the hooks—both ethnographic and cosmological—but it is a matter of getting the Player Characters there, but once there, the kingdom oozes a creepy charm of its own.

Physically, Andjang: The Queen on Dog Mountain is a slim booklet which possesses the lovely simplicity of the Thousand Thousand Isles, both in terms of the words and the art. The illustrations are exquisite and the writing delightfully succinct and easy to grasp.

In terms of story, Andjang: The Queen on Dog Mountain is easy to use once the Player Characters get there. There are hooks and plots which the Game Master could develop and engage the players and their characters with, and the setting is easy to adapt to the world of the Game Master’s choice, whether that is a domain on the Demiplane of Dread that is Ravenloft for Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition or a remote kingdom in Hollow Earth Expedition or Leagues of Adventure. However it is used, if the Game Master can get her Player Characters to its borders, Andjang: The Queen on Dog Mountain is creepy and weird, a beautifully and simply presented vampire kingdom off the beaten track.

—oOo—

The great news is that is Upper Heleng: The Forest Beloved by Time, MR-KR-GR The Death-Rolled Kingdom, Kraching, Andjang: The Queen on Dog Mountain, and the others in the Thousand Thousand Isles setting are now available outside of Malaysia. Details can be found here.

[Fanzine Focus XXIV] Upper Heleng

On the tail of the Old School Renaissance has come another movement—the rise of the fanzine. Although the fanzine—a nonprofessional and nonofficial publication produced by fans of a particular cultural phenomenon, got its start in Science Fiction fandom, in the gaming hobby it first started with Chess and Diplomacy fanzines before finding fertile ground in the roleplaying hobby in the 1970s. Here these amateurish publications allowed the hobby a public space for two things. First, they were somewhere that the hobby could voice opinions and ideas that lay outside those of a game’s publisher. Second, in the Golden Age of roleplaying when the Dungeon Masters were expected to create their own settings and adventures, they also provided a rough and ready source of support for the game of your choice. Many also served as vehicles for the fanzine editor’s house campaign and thus they showed another DM and group played said game. This would often change over time if a fanzine accepted submissions. Initially, fanzines were primarily dedicated to the big three RPGs of the 1970s—Dungeons & Dragons, RuneQuest, and Traveller—but fanzines have appeared dedicated to other RPGs since, some of which helped keep a game popular in the face of no official support.Since 2008 with the publication of Fight On #1, the Old School Renaissance has had its own fanzines. The advantage of the Old School Renaissance is that the various Retroclones draw from the same source and thus one Dungeons & Dragons-style RPG is compatible with another. This means that the contents of one fanzine will compatible with the Retroclone that you already run and play even if not specifically written for it. Labyrinth Lord and Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay have proved to be popular choices to base fanzines around, as has Swords & Wizardry.

Upper Heleng: The Forest Beloved by Time is a little different. Penned by Zedeck Siew—author of Lorn Song of the Bachelor—and drawn by Munkao, it is the third title published by the A Thousand Thousand Islands imprint, a Southeast Asian-themed fantasy visual world-building project, one which aims to draw from regional folklore and history to create a fantasy world truly rooted in the region’s myths, rather than a set of rules simply reskinned with a fantasy culture. The result of the project to date is eight fanzines, plus appendices, each slightly different, and each focusing on discrete settings which might be in the same world, but are just easily be separate places in separate worlds. What sets the series apart is the aesthetic sparseness of its combination of art and text. The latter describes the place, its peoples and personalities, its places, and its strangeness with a very simple economy of words. Which is paired with the utterly delightful artwork which captures the strangeness and exoticism of the particular setting and brings it alive. Barring a table of three (or more) for determining random aspects that the Player Characters might encounter each entry in the series is systemless, meaning that each can be using any manner of roleplaying games and systems, whether that is fantasy or Science Fiction, the Old School Renaissance or not.

The first, MR-KR-GR The Death-Rolled Kingdom, described the Death-Rolled Kingdom, built on the remains of great drowned city, now ruled by crocodiles in lazy, benign fashion, they police the river, and their decrees outlaw the exploration of the ruins of MR-KR-GR, and they sometimes hire adventurers. The second, Kraching, explored the life of a quiet, sleepy village alongside a great forest, dominated by cats of all sizes and known for its beautiful carvings of the wood taken from the forest. The third in the series, Upper Heleng: The Forest Beloved by Time, takes the reader, if not into this forest, but into a forest.

Stepping into the forest is like stepping into the past. Time seems to pass differently there, and so it is in Upper Heleng, though no native would call it that. Beyond the two great trees which mark its most obvious entry—one dead, the other never not in flower, time passes faster for objects not of the forest. They rot, they rust, teeth fall out. It is almost as if the forest is rejecting such modernisms. Squirrels appear to chatter and gossip—if you listen. A wheezing mouse deer asks for help—it has a woman’s face. Take care lest the Leeches stalk you and steal something from more important than a mere possession—a hand, a child not yet born, a skill, your favourite song… The forest is married to Time and has given birth to many gods who make their home in her arboreal embrace. Each has their own time, some of which are embraced by the natives, some of which are not. The Leech is her eldest, who governs memory, loss, and entropy, and who defends his mother when necessary and whose manifestations stalk and steal from intruders. The Bee is her third daughter, a gibbon-shaped hive of bees whose presence indicates that harvest is here. The Moth is the youngest and the oldest, and governs death for all who die in the forest, able to see out of the spots on the moth he has for a face—and out of all spots of all moths. Anyone who died in the forest may be asked questions through the Moth for he remembers them all, but for a price.

The way into the forest—and Upper Heleng: The Forest Beloved by Time—is through a guide. The girl, Wingseed, is keen to take the Player Characters in—though Dangles, her father now living in a dog’s (and thus a god’s) shape worries greatly for her, and will advise them to eat the food grown inside to lessen the effects of time whilst under the canopy. The Player Characters may encounter Sadushan San Di, who quests for the Leech who defeated Sadushan San Di’s liege-lady, Queen Qaidun, and stole her face, but who knows which of the many Leech Spawn now bears that visage? Or Sri Jahisha, itinerant swordfish who wishes to see the un-oceaned world and is borne upon the back of fisherman who he blesses with his magic. The forest nomads with their strange ways, but kindly manner, treating outsiders like children who know no better… Such as Tittertit, the elderly camp chief who does not give a damn and whose armful of monkeys know spells and Scoffysyrup, a woman addicted to the beakroot which is transforming her into a bird. She wants to be free to fly and wants more, but her campmates refuse to gather it. Perhaps the Player Characters have come to aid Sadushan San Di or to purchase trade goods, like the Ghost Antler, infused with the beast’s final instincts at death, the phantom vines which are found hanging in the air and can be woven into nets capable of entrapping the incorporeal, or Quick Honey, the mercury liquid which grants a day’s invulnerability and unerring action in return for the ultimate price, but which all of the gods across the Thousand Thousand Isles want at their table.

For the Game Master there are tables to determine random encounters in the forest and encounters with the forest people. There is also an insert which provides another pair of tables. Both are ‘die-drop’ tables, one a name generator for the people of the forest which with a roll of six dice also generates a personality too. The other is a lay of the land of the forest, a collection of places, the fall of the dice determining the elements of the location where the Player Characters are, or are going, the Game Master building the descriptions from where the dice land. This is not necessarily a map generator, since the land can change, rivers squirm to elsewhere, paths wither and disappear. Essentially, the forest grows and changes, but remains the same.

Physically, Upper Heleng: The Forest Beloved by Time is a slim booklet which possesses the lovely simplicity of the Thousand Thousand Isles, both in terms of the words and the art. Together they evoke visions of a very different world, inspired by forest taboos and Bateq egalitarianism, and of a very different fantasy to which a Western audience is used, but the light text makes it all very accessible as the art entrances the reader. However, Upper Heleng: The Forest Beloved by Time is not easy to use, the forest crawl being far away and not necessarily easy to reach, but worse, it is difficult to engage the Player Characters with it until they reach its eaves. The Game Master will need to work hard to create motivations and drives for them to travel to Upper Heleng, and that is its biggest weakness. It has the hooks—both ethnographic and cosmological—but it is a matter of getting the Player Characters there.

Upper Heleng: The Forest Beloved by Time has not quite the charm of the previous MR-KR-GR The Death-Rolled Kingdom or Kraching, but this does not mean that it is not without appeal. Once again, Upper Heleng: The Forest Beloved by Time is beguilingly simple and exquisitely enticing in its presentation of a bucolically strange, but seemingly tranquil land far away from whatever constitutes the main hub of the world and its action.

—oOo—

The great news is that is Upper Heleng: The Forest Beloved by Time, MR-KR-GR The Death-Rolled Kingdom, Kraching, and the others in the Thousand Thousand Isles setting are now available outside of Malaysia. Details can be found here.

[Fanzine Focus XXI] Kraching

On the tail of the Old School Renaissance has come another movement—the rise of the fanzine. Although the fanzine—a nonprofessional and nonofficial publication produced by fans of a particular cultural phenomenon, got its start in Science Fiction fandom, in the gaming hobby it first started with Chess and Diplomacy fanzines before finding fertile ground in the roleplaying hobby in the 1970s. Here these amateurish publications allowed the hobby a public space for two things. First, they were somewhere that the hobby could voice opinions and ideas that lay outside those of a game’s publisher. Second, in the Golden Age of roleplaying when the Dungeon Masters were expected to create their own settings and adventures, they also provided a rough and ready source of support for the game of your choice. Many also served as vehicles for the fanzine editor’s house campaign and thus they showed another DM and group played said game. This would often change over time if a fanzine accepted submissions. Initially, fanzines were primarily dedicated to the big three RPGs of the 1970s—Dungeons & Dragons, RuneQuest, and Traveller—but fanzines have appeared dedicated to other RPGs since, some of which helped keep a game popular in the face of no official support.

Since 2008 with the publication of Fight On #1, the Old School Renaissance has had its own fanzines. The advantage of the Old School Renaissance is that the various Retroclones draw from the same source and thus one Dungeons & Dragons-style RPG is compatible with another. This means that the contents of one fanzine will compatible with the Retroclone that you already run and play even if not specifically written for it. Labyrinth Lord and Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay have proved to be popular choices to base fanzines around, as has Swords & Wizardry.

Kraching is a little different. Penned by Zedeck Siew—author of Lorn Song of the Bachelor—and drawn by Munkao, it is the second title published by the A Thousand Thousand Islands imprint, a Southeast Asian-themed fantasy visual world-building project, one which aims to draw from regional folklore and history to create a fantasy world truly rooted in the region’s myths, rather than a set of rules simply reskinned with a fantasy culture. The result of the project to date is four fanzines, each slightly different, the first of which is marked with a ‘1’ and is MR-KR-GR The Death-Rolled Kingdom. This described the Death-Rolled Kingdom, or the Dismembered Land, which sits on the lake and was once the site of a great city said to have been drowned by a thousand monsters, located far up a lush river. It is ruled by crocodiles in lazy, benign fashion, they police the river, and their decrees outlaw the exploration of the ruins of MR-KR-GR, and they sometimes hire adventurers.

What set MR-KR-GR The Death-Rolled Kingdom apart from its setting is the combination of art and text. The latter describes the place, its peoples and personalities, its places, and its strangeness with a very simple economy of words. Which is paired with the utterly delightful artwork which captures the strangeness and exoticism of the setting and brings it alive. Kraching is just the same and like MR-KR-GR The Death-Rolled Kingdom, it is systemless, having no mechanics bar a table or two—MR-KR-GR The Death-Rolled Kingdom has more—meaning that Kraching could be run using any manner of roleplaying games and systems. Where MR-KR-GR The Death-Rolled Kingdom described a kingdom though, Kraching—marked with a ‘2’—details a village and its forest environs.

Kraching lies five days to the west on foot, the route lined with wooden posts carved with cats—snarling tigers, sulking tabbies, and sleepy tomcats, each of them watching you warily. Cats are found everywhere in Kraching, on the streets and in the houses, worn as hats, on the seat of the local ruler such that he has to perch on the edge of his seat, and of all sizes—from kittens to tigers, and carved everywhere. Even the local god, Auw, a six-legged panther with a human face has been carved as a statue which stands at the centre of the village, scratched by many cats and burned by many offerings. The villagers are famed for their skill in woodcarving, the wood they take from the surrounding forest possessed by spirits so bored their want is to be carved into masks and worn in the theatre. Thus, they will get to see the world, and many have gone on to have illustrious careers!

Both the details and the secrets of Kraching are revealed at a sedate pace. The Player Characters may encounter Neha, a Buffalo-woman who sells silks, fine tools, and pearl jewellery in return for crafts, forest goods, and the occasional adventuresome youth; priests who come to Kraching to commission idols of their gods in the forest’s holy rosewood—blasphemous acts cannot be performed in the presence of such idols; and whether a tabby or a tiger, no cat in the village is tame, all are wild and can only be distracted. This can be best done with a magical wand, ball, or chew toy, that is, a cat toy! Along the way, the relationship between the villagers and the cats they revere and honour is explained through the stories of Auw, from ‘Auw the Woodworker’ who carved cats to drive out soldiers who had come to cut the forest down and so filled it with felines of all sizes, to ‘Auw the Suitor, who would have cruelly taken a woodcarver, but she cleverly carved a tigress with which to capture his ardour and so force him to reign in his cruelty. It all builds a simple, but beautiful picture of the village and its surrounds.

Unlike MR-KR-GR The Death-Rolled Kingdom, there are no the tables for creating encounters and scenarios in Kraching. Instead a handful of scenario seeds are scattered across its pages, such as Neha the Buffalo-women having lost her Ari the Bookkeeper, her counting spirit, in the village or Mahi needing adventurers to escort her apprentice who has been sent to deliver an idol to a distant temple whose priesthood has suffered a schism. None of the seeds amount to more than a line or two, so a Game Master will need to do some development work, and further their number fits the sparseness of the descriptions and of the village itself. Kraching is a quiet, sleepy place and to have fulsome encounter tables might have made it feel too busy. Plus of course, it leaves plenty of room for the Game Master to add her own content.

Physically, Kraching is a slim booklet which possesses a lovely simplicity, both in terms of the words and the art. Together they evoke visions of a very different world and of a very different fantasy to which a Western audience is used, but the light text makes it all very accessible as the art entrances the reader. For the Game Master wanting to take her campaign to somewhere a little strange, somewhere warily bucolic in a far-off land, Kraching is a perfect destination.

—oOo—

As much as it would be fantastic to see MR-KR-GR The Death-Rolled Kingdom, Kraching, and the other two—Upper Heleng and Andjang—collected in volume of their own, they are currently available here.

Gloranthan Friends and Foes

As good as the core rulebook for the new edition of RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha is, it can be argued that there are three fundamental issues with it. One is that it is too humanocentric. What this means is that the core rulebook for the new edition of the classic roleplaying game published by Chaosium, Inc. only provides the means to create human player characters and it does not provide anything in the way of NPCs, foes, or monsters that the player characters might face or be challenged by. The second is that it lacks advice for the Game Master for running the game, necessary because its setting of Glorantha and in particular, Dragon Pass, because that is the focus of the new edition, is very different to other fantasy roleplaying games. Third, it lacks a starting scenario which can showcase both the mechanics and the setting of Glorantha for the Game Master and her players.

Now whilst it can be argued that these are problems, such arguments can be countered by the fact that like Dungeons & Dragons, the new edition of RuneQuest at its core, consists not of one book, but three. So where Dungeons & Dragons famously has the Player’s Handbook, the Monster Manual, and the Dungeon Master’s Guide, the new edition of RuneQuest has RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha, the RuneQuest: Glorantha Bestiary, and Gamemaster Screen Pack. The fact that all three are designed to fit into a rather pleasing and sturdy slipcase that looks good on the shelf not only supports this counter argument, but together they directly address the issues that some may have with the core rulebook for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha.

As with RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha, the RuneQuest: Glorantha Bestiary is another sturdy hardback, though not as large as the core rulebook. Its contents detail some two hundred or so of the races, creatures, and monsters as well as flora native to Glorantha (and its adjacent spirit worlds), the myth-infused setting created by the late Greg Stafford. These contents are divided into eight chapters which in turn examine Glorantha’s Elder Races, Chaos Monsters, Monsters, Giant Arthropods, Animals, Spirits, Terrors, and Flora. Before it gets to the particulars, it gives some pointers as what makes the entries in this volume and this setting different from any other bestiary, setting, or fantasy roleplaying game. These highlight how deadly they can be and the player characters—if not the players—are more than likely to be aware of this. They also make clear that many of the creatures and races described in the book are intelligent and should be played that way, the Game Master being given some solid advice to that end. What is also made clear is that the contents of book covers the races, creatures, monsters, and flora of just Genertela, Glorantha’s northern continent. That does mean that anyone wanting a bestiary covering both Genertela and the southern continent, Pamaltela, will be disappointed. That said, such a book would be at least double the size of the RuneQuest: Glorantha Bestiary and arguably outside RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha’s primary setting of Dragon Pass and its surrounds. This focus on Genertela is further supported by a series of distribution maps for the various Elder Races.

All of the entries follow the same format. They all begin with an oddity though. As well as its common name, every entry is given its scientific name in Latin, so Homo sapiens, var telmori for the Wolfbrothers, Joannursus paralysis for Jack o’Bears, and Lynx umbrosus for Shadowcats or Alynxes. Of course the Roman Empire was never part of Glorantha and there is no obvious equivalent of Latin—though Trade Talk might qualify as the nearest—so of course, it feels a little odd. Except there are creatures in the Glorantha Bestiary which do have Latin names and those are the dinosaurs, here given as emotionally debased and reincarnated Dragonnewts, but actually based on real world dinosaurs such as Allosaurs and Triceratopses. Extending the use of Latin for the dinosaurs to the other entries in the supplement does make sense then, but nevertheless, it still feels a little odd.

The format for each entry covers, as appropriate, mythos and history, subtypes, description, culture, government, relationships with other races, religion, and region of origin before getting to anything mechanical. The latter includes characteristics and skills of course, but as befitting the new mechanics to RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha they also list any Passions, Runes, and Rune Spells that a typical member of that entry would have. They also go further in providing the means for creating several of the Elder Races as adventurers to be roleplayed by the players or more detailed NPCs. So to create a Trolkin adventurer, in addition to the characteristics and skills, the Glorantha Bestiary lists the Runes a Trolkin starts with—in this case, the Darkness Rune at 40% and another Rune at 20%, the starting skills in addition to those of Dark Trolls, and then the occupations. There are one, two, or four given depending upon the class a Trolkin belongs to. Thus a Trolkin classed as Food can only be a Hunter/Gatherer, as a Worker can be either a Chanter, Crafter, Hunter/Gatherer, or Insect Herder, as a Warrior can only be a Warrior, and as Value can be a Warrior or an Overseer. Besides this, the entries also detail one or more of the cults that members of the race can also belong. For the Aldryami (Elves) just the one cult is given, that of Aldrya, but this is broken down into several subcults. The special Rune spells for the cult are also listed.

Now what is not included in the character creation process for all of the races that can be created as adventurers from Glorantha Bestiary is the Family History as per step two in RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha. This should not be counted as a fault for three reasons. First, some of the races could use the Family History tables in the core rulebook, such as the Ducks, and second, the Glorantha Bestiary is not a dedicated sourcebook for any of these races where such Family Tree tables are likely to be found, and third, it would greatly increase the length of the book.

The first chapter is dedicated to the Elder Races. Five stand out here, expanding greatly upon the background given in The Gloranthan Sourcebook. The Aldryami or Elves, Dragonnewts, Agimori or Men-and-a-Half, Mostali or Dwarves, Trolls or Uz, and Wolfbrothers or Telmori. All are given quite lengthy write-ups, for example, the Aldryami covering Dryads as well as Brown Elves, Green Elves, Yellow Elves, Black Elves, Blue Elves, Pixies, and Runners. The entry on Dragonnewts is particularly impressive, covering all five stages of their lifecycle—Crested, Beaked, Tailed Priest, Full Priest, and Inhuman King, their magic, their motivations, and their roads. Similarly the description of the Wolfbrothers goes into some detail, including the Telmori cult and its special Rune spells which explain how they transform into wolves when it is not Wildday. Of course, not all of these are available as player characters, only the Aldryami, Men-and-a-Half, Mostali, and Trolls are, along with the Morokanth and the Baboons, then the Centaurs, Ducks, and Minotaurs from the Beastmen section. Other entries include Giants, Gorillas, the weird Maidstone Archers with three arms but no head, Newtlings, Triolini or merfolk, the brutal and bestial Tusk Raiders with their cult of the Bloody Tusk, and Wind Children. 

As much as some of the Elder Races hate each other—and in the case of the Trolls, ate the others—the real enemy is presented in the Chaos Monsters. Relatively short in comparison to the other chapters, the entries for creatures such as Dancers in Darkness—vampiric women who serve Delecti the Necromancer, Dragonsnails, Ghouls, Gorps, Scorpion Men, and Walktapi, are likewise shorter than those in the Elder Races chapter. That said the Game Master has the means to modify many of these creatures by using the Chaotic Features table. The first entry in this chapter is surprisingly impressive, a lengthy description of Broos and their rife fecundity infused with Chaos which lifts them from being simple Chaos fodder complete with details of their associated Mallia and Thed cults and Rune spells.

The Monsters chapter most notably includes Dragons, noting where the True Dragons of Dragon Pass and the Kralorean True Dragons are as well as providing stats for Dream Dragons. Also included are Dinosaurs, Giant Eels, Griffins, Rock Lizards, Skeletons, Sky Bulls, Wyrms, and more. Giant Arthropods covers Antlions, Beetles, Crabs—both water and arboreal varieties, Centipedes, Praying Mantises, Spiders, Ice Worms, and more all of the the giant variety. The Animals chapters covers creatures of a more mundane nature, from Bears, Bloodbirds, and Cattle to Wild Boar, Wolves, and Yaks. Not all of the entries are necessarily mundane though, for example, Dire Wolves are raised from birth to be the companions of the Wolfbrothers detailed in the Elder Races chapter.

The incorporeal entities known as Spirits get their own chapter, which cover the various types—Animal, Disease, Healing, and Plant as well as demons, the Nyctalope darkness demon, and Genius Loci like Nymphs and Ghosts which are tied to a particular location, and the means to create them using the list of powers given. Notably, the Genius Loci includes Wyters, the spirits of communities, like villages, military regiments, clans, tribes, and more. It covers their powers and what they can do and is very useful information for the Game Master given the strength of community in Glorantha and RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha. Various types of Elementals are also detailed in the chapter, but in the main this is very useful chapter if a player has decided to create an Assistant Shaman as per RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha and the Game Master wants spirits and more for the character to interact with.

The Glorantha Bestiary has already looked at large creatures such as Dinosaurs, Dragons, and Giants, but it steps up a SIZE or fifty—for the penultimate chapter. With just four unique entries, Terrors is not actually the shortest chapter in the book. These include Cwim, the three-bodied Spawn of Thed and the Devil, Chaos Gaggle, and Fiends of Cacodemon, but pride of place goes to the infamous Crimson Bat, the Chaos demon bound into the service of the Red Goddess and thus the Lunar Empire. The description covers feeding the bat, its effect upon the populations it visits, how it is piloted, and its effect as an extension of the Glowline, the magical border of the Lunar Empire. (This is actually supported by a map of Tarsh and the Lunar Empire to the northwest of Dragon Pass inside the back cover, a nice addition.) Basically, as the setting’s current ‘big bad’, this is a great addition, but for the most part, one you would run and hide from rather than readily confront. Lastly, the Plants chapter details twenty or so species of various types and uses like Darkfoil’s ability to glow in the presence of Chaos and the ability of Princess Plants to protect against fire and heat.

Physically, the Glorantha Bestiary is a sturdy, full colour hardback. The cover, dominated by a Troll surrounded by a strange cast including a Duck, a Baboon, a Morokanth, a Broo, a Scorpion Man, and more is perhaps a little dark and so not quite as effective as the cover for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha. Inside though, the book is more impressive, being laid out in the same style as the core rulebook and illustrated in a range of styles, both colour and greyscale. What this means is that the book is clear and readable and attractive to look at.

On the downside, the likelihood is that there are going to be some creatures that diehard fans of Glorantha are going to miss from the pages of the Glorantha Bestiary, but this is still a comprehensive treatment and it does only cover Genertala. That said, not every creature is given an illustration, which is more of an issue. It also would have been nice if there had been colour fiction to accompany each of the entries, to help get an in-world view of the various races, creatures, and monsters and so add a little flavour. To be fair these are only minor niggles and should not be held against the Glorantha Bestiary.

Unfortunately, for all of the good content to found within the pages of the Glorantha Bestiary, it has one issue that is not a mere niggle—and that is ease of reference. This is due to two problems, one which follows on from the other. The first is the organisation of the book into chapters rather than a straight alphabetical listing, which whilst it makes sense thematically, does make finding anything not as easy as it should be. There is of course an index and therein lies the second problem. The index lists all of the entries for the races, creatures, and monsters in the Glorantha Bestiary alphabetically and that is fine. Except that what it does not list is all of the supplementary information, the details of the cults, their rune spells, and so on. Of course, it is a simple matter of remembering that the entry for Kygor Litor and the rune spell Blinding will be in the Troll section in the Elder Races chapter, but secondary indices for this supplementary information would have been useful for quick reference.

One function of any bestiary for a roleplaying game is to provide it and any gaming group with an array of foes to be challenged by or kill and the Glorantha Bestiary is no exception. So there are races and creatures and monsters which in general no one likes and then there are races and creatures and monsters which are disliked by certain races and creatures and monsters. So obviously there is a long standing enmity between Trolls, Dwarves, and Elves, but almost no-one has any love for the Broos, Gorps, Rubble Runners, or Tusk Riders, for example. Even then, such creatures and races are not treated as mere fodder for the sword and the spear, the Glorantha Bestiary affording races like the Broos and Tusk Riders lengthy essays and descriptions and cults of their own that add detail and depth to both them and the setting which the Game Master can bring to her campaign. 

Yet as much as the Glorantha Bestiary fulfils that function, it does a whole lot more. The Elder Races chapter provides the means to create and roleplay members of the Aldramyi, Mostali, and Uz as well as Ducks, Baboons, Centaurs, and more, whether that is as player characters or as NPCs. Then there are stats for the animals that will be of use to various player characters, whether that is the horse for any Noble character or Cavalry Soldier—five breeds are described, Cattle for the Herder, the Shadowcat for the Yinkin worshipper, the Giant Arthropods for the Uz Insect Herder, or the various beasts of burden ridden by the nomadic tribes of Prax, such as Bison, Bolo Lizards, and Herd-Men used by the Morokanth. The Spirits chapter will be of interest to any player with a Shaman character and for campaigns which focus on the community with the rules for Wyters. Players with Lunar characters will simply be worshipping the Terrors chapter—or at least the only entry in that chapter that matters.

The RuneQuest: Glorantha Bestiary opens up the world of Glorantha and Dragon Pass in particular, fleshing it out physically and spiritually with both friends and foes, some playable, some not, and does so in many ways. Its combination of background and stats, friends and foes, supports Game Master and player alike and together serve to make the RuneQuest: Glorantha Bestiary an essential companion to RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha.

[Fanzine Focus XIV] MR-KR-GR The Death-Rolled Kingdom

On the tail of Old School Renaissance has come another movement—the rise of the fanzine. Although the fanzine—a nonprofessional and nonofficial publication produced by fans of a particular cultural phenomenon, got its start in Science Fiction fandom, in the gaming hobby it first started with Chess and Diplomacy fanzines before finding fertile ground in the roleplaying hobby in the 1970s. Here these amateurish publications allowed the hobby a public space for two things. First, they were somewhere that the hobby could voice opinions and ideas that lay outside those of a game’s publisher. Second, in the Golden Age of roleplaying when the Dungeon Masters were expected to create their own settings and adventures, they also provided a rough and ready source of support for the game of your choice. Many also served as vehicles for the fanzine editor’s house campaign and thus they showed another Dungeon Master and group played said game. This would often change over time if a fanzine accepted submissions. Initially, fanzines were primarily dedicated to the big three RPGs of the 1970s—Dungeons & Dragons, RuneQuest, and Traveller—but fanzines have appeared dedicated to other RPGs since, some of which helped keep a game popular in the face of no official support.

Since 2008 with the publication of Fight On #1, the Old School Renaissance has had its own fanzines. The advantage of the Old School Renaissance is that the various Retroclones draw from the same source and thus one Dungeons & Dragons-style RPG is compatible with another. This means that the contents of one fanzine will compatible with the Retroclone that you already run and play even if not specifically written for it. Labyrinth Lord and Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay have proved to be popular choices to base fanzines around, as has Swords & Wizardry.

MR-KR-GR The Death-Rolled Kingdom is a little different. First, it is systemless, and second, it is the first setting detailed under the A Thousand Thousand Islands imprint. Based in Malaysia and penned by Zedeck Siew and drawn by Munkao, this is a Southeast Asian-themed fantasy visual world-building project, one which aims to draw from regional folklore and history to create a fantasy world truly rooted in the region’s myths, rather than a set of rules simply reskinned with a fantasy culture. The result of the project to date is four fanzines, each slightly different, the first of which is marked with a ‘1’ and is MR-KR-GR The Death-Rolled Kingdom.

Up a lush river lies a lake accessible via a gateway consisting of the grand, gaping maws of two crocodiles. This is the entrance to MR-KR-GR The Death-Rolled Kingdom, or the Dismembered Land, which sits on the lake and was once the site of a great city said to have been drowned by a thousand monsters. Beyond lies the wooden port of Singga, its banks crowded with boats and its skyline crowded with vine and silence-wrapped temples. Here merchants come to trade in coin, grain, honey, and forest goods, such as ‘Spirit Mango’ fruit from trees pollinated in the spirit realm; ‘Corpse Honey’, health-giving honey harvested from hive-zombies; and ‘Snake Stone’, ruined stonework containing trace magics which can be reworked into minor amulets. Downlanders may trade in the Singga, but they require a permit to stay. Otherwise, they must retreat at night to Trader’s Island where tea shops and lodging houses are built across the cheeks, nose, and forehead of a giant, fallen statue.

Crocodiles rule MR-KR-GR The Death-Rolled Kingdom in a lazy, benign fashion. They police the river, their decrees outlaw the exploration of the ruins of MR-KR-GR, they are patrons, and more. AR-YM-SR the famed crocodile and archaeologist who has lost too many to the demon idols MR-KR-GR’s interior will hire adventurers to locate books and artefacts, but not to study them, but ensure that rot in the river; GR-RM-DR, a crocodile so obese she has to be carried on a litter owns many businesses and is owed much monies; and only the crocodiles can grant Downlanders citizenship, but this requires their being drowned—twice.

Another difference with MR-KR-GR The Death-Rolled Kingdom is that its setting, its peoples and personalities, its places, and its strangeness are described with a very simple economy in terms of its words. Its absolute minimum of description is paired with utterly delightful artwork, which ranges from strange vistas and ports teeming with activity to demon idols that were fashioned as walking prisons for the old kingdom’s gods and a duellist whose father was actually a sword. Drawn by a single artist, Munkao, the profuse number of illustrations in this forty page fanzine would put many a gaming supplement to shame and do a superb job of bringing the author’s text to life. One issue perhaps is that some of the artwork is a little light and perhaps not quite as well produced on the pages here as it is in Drawings, Part One, another fanzine-style booklet published by the A Thousand Thousand Islands project.

Although MR-KR-GR The Death-Rolled Kingdom is systemless, it does require a number of dice as there several tables to be found within its pages. These include encounter tables, demon idol tables, crocodile tables, and more, but using these tables and just by taking a cue from the simple descriptions given, a Game Master could easily create encounters and scenario ideas, even straight from the page during play. Besides being easily adapted to the rules system of the Game Master’s choice, the setting described in MR-KR-GR The Death-Rolled Kingdom is also easily adapted to the campaign of the Game Master’s choice. Of course it would fit into any campaign based on south-east Asia, but doing so might mean that distinctiveness of MR-KR-GR The Death-Rolled Kingdom might be lost amongst all of the other ‘exotic’ surrounds. One possible setting is that of Tékumel, perhaps on a far distant coast from the Five Empires and with the crocodiles having six legs instead four, but it would also work in H.P. Lovecraft’s Dreamlands; as a strange port of call in a planetary romance campaign; and even as somewhere in the far distant future or past for the Doctor to visit in a Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space campaign.

As has already been mentioned, there is a lovely simplicity to MR-KR-GR The Death-Rolled Kingdom, both in terms of the words and the art. It would be amazing to see this developed into a game of its own, but perhaps that would spoil what the writer and artist have already done—evoke visions of a very different world and of a very different fantasy to which a Western audience is used. 

RuneQuest VII

It is with sadness that the passing of its creator, the late Greg Stafford, came just as his first great creation was published by Chaosium, Inc. and released to the public at large in an all new edition which successfully combines his classic mechanics with a ‘holy’ original setting which has been a fan favourite for the last forty or so years. The mechanics are at their core RuneQuest 2, recently reprinted as RuneQuest: Classic Edition, along with additions from roleplaying games such as Pendragon – Chivalric Roleplaying in Arthur’s Britain and HeroQuest Glorantha. The setting is Glorantha, the second great setting to come to roleplaying. It is a Bronze Age land rich in myth and legend in which heroes enter into strong relationships with their gods via the Runes—the fundamental building blocks which the universe and Glorantha are constructed from—that these deities embody. Then through these Runes they continue to embody and confirm the legends and stories of the gods by enacting them in great Hero Quests. The new roleplaying game is RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha, in which the players will roleplay these heroes at a time of great change.


RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha is set in a specific time and place. It is the year 1625. For years, the region known as the Dragon Pass has been rent by rebellion and unrest as the nation of Sartar and peoples of Old Tarsh attempted to drive out the occupying troops and proselytising red priests of the Lunar Empire, which views them as being home to barbarians. The conflict has escalated and spread, involving the Lunar client state of Tarsh, the neighbouring matriarchal nation of Esrolia, the nomadic tribes of Prax, and others. It has come to a head with a heroquest which saw the successful summoning of a True Dragon under the Temple of the Reach Moon just as it was about to be consecrated. This event, known as the Dragonrise, disrupted Lunar efforts in Dragon Pass and triggered an uprising across the region and the beginning of the long foretold Hero Wars. It is this conflict that the player characters will set out to join as Heroes.

RuneQuest always was original, both in terms of its setting and its mechanics. As a roleplaying game, it was the first fantasy roleplaying game to eschew Class and Level, opting instead for mechanics that focused on skills. Characters were not confined to what skills they could learn and what weapons they could wield, and magic was such a fundamental part of the setting that anyone could learn to use it. The combat mechanics were detailed and brutal, involving individual hit locations and Hit Points, armour was worn location by location, and it was possible lose limbs and suffer impalements. As much as magic was woven into the setting of Glorantha, so too were the gods and the cults devoted to them. It was expected that player characters would become initiates of one or more of these cults and perhaps advance enough to become Rune Lords or Rune Priests of these cults. Unfortunately, the information about the cults, how to join them, the duties required of being members, their aims, and how they interact was not always readily available nor was information about Glorantha and Dragon Pass itself.

RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha not only very much retains this originality, but it builds on it. At its core are the same solid mechanics more recently seen in RuneQuest: Classic Edition. It remains a skills focused system with detailed rules for combat and characters being allowed to learn what skills they want, cast what magic they want, and wield what weapons they want. It remains set in Glorantha, but it integrates the world that the characters will adventure in into the rules, tying character and family background into the setting and its recent history, giving characters ready access to magic—both Spirit and Rune magic, and adding new rules for Passions, Reputation, and Runes, augmentation of abilities of abilities with Runes and Passions, and both Sorcery and the Spirit World.

It should be made clear though, what RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha is not. It is not a complete roleplaying game in the sense that it does not include a bestiary or advice for the Game Master. Primarily, it introduces the world of Glorantha and the region of Dragon Pass, provides rules for character creation, cults, magic—Spirit, Rune, Shamanism, and Sorcery, with spell listings for all four, and a season-based campaign structure. The character generation rules are humanocentric and highly Dragon Pass focused, with players being able to create characters from Sartar, Esrolia, the Grazelands, Prax, Lunar Tarsh, and Old Tarsh. Gloranthophiles will have to wait for rules to create characters from other regions and of the Elder Races (as well as Ducks). It is also tightly focused on a setting and a time period—the run up to the Hero Wars and 1625—and it is also no longer a ‘generic’ fantasy roleplaying game. Changing either of these may be something of a challenge for the Game Master.

RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha begins with an introduction to both RuneQuest and Glorantha, emphasising what makes it different, before going into more depth about Glorantha and the Runes which are its building blocks. This is quite a light introduction, more information being available in The Glorantha Sourcebook, the systemless supplement which supports HeroQuest Glorantha and 13th Age Glorantha as well as RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha. That said RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha does include some background on the various homelands in Dragon Pass that a player can select from during character creation.

Character generation in RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha is an eight-step process. It begins with a player selecting a Homeland for his character, which suggests common Occupations, Cults, and Passions, and Rune affinities. Then he creates some history for the character, his parents, and his grandparents, rolling on series of tables which will determine their involvement in events in Dragon Pass from 1561 until 1625, shortly after the Dragonrise. The character at this point will be twenty-one years of age and from this history will know whether his grandfather was at the Battle of Grizzly Peak, if his mother was involved in the Second Invasion of Prax, and if he himself actually saw the Dragonrise. The process will add more Passions and may add skills, reputation, and even some loot.

The third step is to create the character’s connections or Affinities to the Runes. These enable a character to use magic, join a cult, and so on. They also affect a character’s personality and physical build by adjusting his attributes slightly. Runes are divided into two types, Elemental Runes and Power/Form Runes. The Elemental Runes—Air, Earth, Darkness, Water, and so on, are separate Runes, but Power/Form Runes are arranged into pairs such as Harmony/Disorder and Fertility/Death. Now where the Elemental Runes have their percentile values, the Power/Form Runes percentile values are paired and must total one hundred percent for both. If a character has Harmony 45%, then its opposed pair, Disorder is 55%. When one changes, the other also changes. This reminiscent of the personality traits in Pendragon – Chivalric Roleplaying in Arthur’s Britain.

A character’s attributes—Strength, Constitution, Size, Dexterity, Intelligence, Power, and Charisma—are rolled on three six-sided dice to get a result between three and eighteen, apart from Size and Intelligence which are rolled on two six-sided dice to which six is added, plus modifications from a character’s Homeland (if any) and Rune Affinities. Various characteristics are derived from these attributes, including skill modifiers, damage modifier, spirit damage modifier, and so on. Skills and skill bonuses are granted by a character’s Homeland and Occupation, being added to their base values. Choice of Occupation also determines a character’s source of income, standard of living, and equipment as well as suggesting appropriate cults. It also suggests a suitable ransom value should your character ever be captured—a viable alternative given the lethality of the combat system. Some seventeen Occupations are listed, from Assistant Shaman, Bandit, and Chariot Driver to Scribe, Thief, and Warrior. They include mundane Occupations such as Farmer and Herder as well as oddities like Philosopher, which actually turns out to be the equivalent of a sorcerer.

The last major step is to choose a cult devoted to a particular god. A characters needs fifty percent in one of the Runes associated with the god and cult in order to join, for example, Earth, Fertility, or Harmony for Ernalda. (A value of ninety percent in a Rune Affinity is required if a character to become a Rune Lord or Rune Priest in his cult). As an initiate of the cult—and every player character in RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha begins play as an initiate of a cult—a character gains further training in cult related skills, but more importantly he gains access to both Rune and Spirit magic related to the cult. These are separate and where a character will find himself casting Spirit magic on a regular basis, once Rune magic is cast, a character will need to participate in cult worship and ceremonies, often supported by sacrifice, in order for it to be granted again.

The end result of the generation process is a character with a decent array of skills and typically two or three high value skills as well as high Rune Affinities. He will be tied into the setting via his and his family’s history and the magic and myth of the setting via his cult. The process is not complex, but it does take some time and it does result in quite a dense character sheet. The result though, is more readily and far more capable than beginning characters in previous iterations of RuneQuest, reflecting an empowerment of the player characters to prepare them for the coming Hero Wars.

—oOo—

Oriane
STR 13 CON 13 SIZ 15 INT 09
POW 11 DEX 17 CHA 16
Hit Points: 14 Move: 8
Dex SR: 1 Siz SR: 1
Runes: Air 70%, Earth 60%, Darkness 20%; 50% Harmony/Disorder 50%, 10% Stasis/Movement 90%, 50% Truth/Illusion 50%, 50% Fertility/Death 50%, 10% Man/Beast 90%
Rune Points: 3
Rune Spells: Bear’s Skin, Bear’s Strength, Claws.
Spirit Magic: Detect Life (1), Heal (1), Mobility (1), Speedart (1)
Magic Points: 11
Passions: Love (Family): 70%, Loyalty (Clan): 60%, Loyalty (Shaker Temple): 70%, Passion (Honour): 80%, Loyalty (Queen Samastina): 60%, Devotion (Odayla): 80%
Reputation: 24%
Ransom: 250 L.
Damage Bonus: +1d4
Spirit Combat Damage: 1d6+1
Healing Rate: 2
Armour:
Skills: Agility (Bonus: +10%); Dodge 44%, Ride (Horse) 25%; Communication (Bonus: +05%): Dance 20%, Orate 20%, Sing 45%; Knowledge (Bonus: 00%): Animal Lore 60%, Battle 30%, Cult Lore (Odayla) 20%, Customs (Tarshite) 25%, Farm 25%, Homeland Lore (Old Tarsh) 40%, Peaceful Cut 55%, Survival 30%; Magic (Bonus: +05%): Meditate 10%, Spirit Combat 40%, Worship (Odayla) 30%; Manipulation (Bonus: +10%): Conceal 25%; Perception (Bonus: +00%): Listen 60%, Scan 25%, Track 70%; Stealth (Bonus: +05%): Hide 25%, Move Quietly 40%
Languages: Speak Own Language (Tarshite) 55%, Speak Other Language (Tradetalk) 25%

Oriane’s Attacks
Dagger 25%, 1d4+2, SR 6, HP 6
1H Axe 35%, 1d8+2, SR 5, HP 8
1H Spear 15%, 1d6, SR 4, HP 8
Broadsword 20%, 1d8+1, SR 6, HP 6
Composite Bow 70%, 1d8+1, Rate S/MR, HP 7
Javelin 20%, 1d10, Rate 1/MR, HP 8
Medium Shield 30%, 1d4, SR 5, HP 12
Large Shield 25%, 1d6, SR 5, HP 16

Hit Points: 14
Left Leg: 5, Right Leg: 5, Abdomen: 5 Chest: 6, Left Arm: 4, Right Arm: 4, Head: 5

Standard of Living: Poor.
Base Income: 40 L.
Equipment: Bow, 1H Axe, Shadowcat, snares, furs worth 120 L., ancient gold serpent armband (two point spirit magic matrix) (worth 900 L.), 

History
Homeland: Old Tarsh
Date of Birth: Air Season, Beast Week, Wildday
Grandparent: Grandmother, Durlindia (Warrior)
Parent: Father, Arim (Farmer)
Family History: The family is descended from Oriane, a famous member of the Odayla cult for whom Oriane is named. Oriane’s grandmother, Durlindia fought at the Battles of Grizzly Peak and Alda-Chur in 1582, before retreating to the foothills of Mount Kero Fin. She came forth again to fight in the Boldholme Campaign of 1602, but was forced to flee to New Pavis for two years. Resettling in Old Tarsh again, she would die in a skirmish with the Lunar Tarsh in 1608. Her son, Arim, Oriane’s father, a farmer, died in the Grazeland Campaign of 1615. During the second year of the Great Winter, Oriane fled to Esrolia where she participated in the Civil War, famously fighting the Red Earth Assassins targeting Queen Samastina. At the 1623 Siege of Nochet she served alongside King Broyan with great glory and then again fought with distinction at the Battle of Pennel Ford in 1624. Returning home she witnessed the Dragonrise and the Shakar Priestess appointing the new king, Unstey, at Wintertop.

—oOo—

Mechanically, as with previous iterations of the roleplaying game, RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha is a percentile system, with a character’s skills, Rune Affinities, Passions, and Reputation all being rated between one and one hundred and a player rolling against them on percentile dice. Rolls can also be made against a character’s attributes which are multiplied depending upon the difficulty. A roll generates five results—Fumble, typically 96% or above; Failure, a result above the skill value; Success, a roll equal to or under the skill value; a Special Success, a roll equal to one fifth or less; and Critical Success, a roll of one twentieth or less of the skill value. Of these, a Critical Success provides a better outcome, for example, a Noble might exhort more members of a crowd to action with a Critical Orate roll, a Farmer might have a more successful harvest with a Critical Farm roll, and a Critical roll ignores armour when rolled in combat. These results are also important in opposed rolls where a better result trumps a worse one, typically using the familiar Resistance Table.

RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha adds two interesting developments to these core rules. First, it handles skills of more than 100% a simple fashion. It is impossible to roll more than 100% and as rolls of 96% or above are always failures any excess value over the 100% is instead deducted from any skill or ability opposing it. Second, a skill, Passion, or Rune roll can be augmented by another skill, Passion, or Rune roll. This generates a one time bonus which is added to the skill to be checked. 

For example, a farm near Oriane has been plagued by wolf attacks and she sets out to drive them off. Her player decides to use her Track skill of 70% to locate the wolves, but will augment it with a roll against her Beast Rune Affinity of 90%, explaining that this is her innate connection to the animal world. Her player rolls 02—a critical success, which means that Oriane is granted a +50% bonus to her Track skill, which is now 120%! Instead of attempting to rolling this, the Game Master deducts excess the 20% from both Oriane’s skill and the Stealth skill of the wolves which are trying to avoid the huntress. Oriane’s player now rolls against a temporary Track skill of 95%, whilst the Game Master rolls against the wolves’ Stealth skill, which is now 40% rather than 60%.

This augmentation mechanic—taken from HeroQuest Glorantha—does two things. Obviously mechanically, it allows characters with lower value skills to be temporarily better, but in terms of roleplaying it enables a player to colour his character’s actions with Passions and Rune Affinities. To explain what his character is doing because of how he feels and because of his connections to the universe via the Runes.

Like the pairing of the Power/Form Runes, Passions are drawn from Pendragon – Chivalric Roleplaying in Arthur’s Britain. They include Devotion—to a deity, Hate, Honour, Loyalty, and Love, and like skills and Rune Affinities, they are percentile values. They represent how a character is feeling and can be used to influence a character’s behaviour and actions, as well as to augment his actions. Another new mechanic is Reputation. Again, a percentile, this indicates how well known a character is. It is improved by great deeds, such as swearing an epic oath or defeating an enemy of divine nature.

Combat in RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha is designed to be detailed and deadly. Distinctly simulationist in design, it is handled in twelve second rounds broken down into twelve Strike Ranks, with a character acting according to his own Strike Rank, determined by his Dexterity and Size, whatever weapon he is wielding, and what action he wants to undertake. In general, wielding longer weapons, such as spears, mean that a character can attack first. Although a character has a pool of Hit Points from which all damage is taken, damage is also taken from individual locations which have their own Hit Points. In addition to these locations taking damage, a Special Success on an attack roll means that they can suffer impale, slash, or crush effects, depending on the weapon. A Critical Success is even worse, because it means that the attack roll ignores armour before the impale, slash, or crush effects are applied. As a consequence, armour is important for stopping this damage, as is learning the Dodge skill, parrying with weapons, and blocking with shields.

Offsetting this though, is the common availability of magical healing. Spirit magic healing is fairly common and many cults provide access to better healing spells. In extreme circumstances, it is possible for a character to appeal for divine intervention on behalf of someone who has been recently killed, but this is not without its consequences and it can take time for the deceased’s spirit to return… Alternatively, knowing when a fight is going against you and surrendering yourself for ransom is sometimes a wise decision. Overall, combat will be familiar to anyone who has played RuneQuest before. True to its Bronze Age milieu, it includes rules for mounted combat—important for many of the Praxian nomads with their riding beasts, chariots, and fighting in phalanx formation.

Magic has always been a part of RuneQuest and characters have always had access to magic in form or another. In RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha there are three types of magic—Spirit, Rune, and Sorcery. (Note given the focus of RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha upon playing characters antithetical to the Lunar Empire, Illumination is not mentioned or covered in these rules). As initiates, player characters have access to the first two through their cult and begin play with the basic Spirit and Rune spells known to their cult. Spirit magic involves communication with the spirits in the world’s natural energy currents for simple effects like Bladesharp, Detect Life, and Heal. In game terms, they require nothing more than a focus—typically an item or tattoo, a POW attribute check, and the expenditure of Magic Points. In general, Spirit magic is straightforward and easy to use.

Whilst Spirit magic is taught by both cults and shamans, the latter are deeply committed to Spirit magic, combining it with a knowledge of both spirits and the Spirit World. Primarily concerned with the spiritual protection and knowledge of their kinsmen, Shaman regularly journey into the Spirit World from the Middle to deal with spiritual threats and bargain for spiritual aid and services. As well as rules for Shamanism and becoming a Shaman, RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha covers Shamanic abilities and spirit combat, explores the nature of the Spirit World and even presents a couple of spirit cults, including the notorious Black Fang Brotherhood!

The third type of magic is Sorcery. This is designed to be a flexible, logical approach to magic, with a sorcerer not only being able to cast spells, but through Techniques can manipulate the intensity, strength, range, and duration of these spells. A sorcerer attunes himself to not just the Runes, but also six Techniques—Command, Combine, Separate, Summon, Dispel, and Tap—which when combined together form the logical formulae that allow the sorcerer to cast his spells. So the spell, Finger of Fire, which produces a tendril of fire that the sorcerer can move around, requires him to be attuned to the Fire/Sky and Movement Runes and the Combine Technique. On the downside, as flexible as Sorcery is, it takes longer to cast—whole rounds rather than in terms of Strike Ranks within a Round.

One issue with Sorcery is its availability. Culturally, Sorcery is a tradition followed by monotheistic cultures—the Malkioni and the Aeolians being given examples, but neither are detailed in the homelands presented earlier in RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha. Alternatively, initiates of Lhankor Mhy are taught a limited amount of Sorcery, but can learn more. In general, Sorcery is the hardest type of magic to learn and master in RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha—in game and out! Given the focus upon God Learners, cults, gods, and Rune magic in the game, Sorcery feels a bit of an afterthought.

The second type of magic—and the most significant addition to RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha—Rune magic. As the fundamental building blocks of the universe, Runes lie at the heart of all magic, but Rune magic not only specifically enables an initiate to use the power of his chosen deity and act like that god, it also allows the god to act in the confines of Time. This fulfills RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha’s description of magic as being… “(T)the interaction of mortals existing within Time with the timeless and eternal powers of the God Time.” This though, requires sacrifice upon the part of the initiate, represented by points of POW, enabling him to forge a link with his god. These points of POW are converted to Rune points which form a separate pool of points used to power the Rune spells which each cult teaches their initiates. By sacrificing yet more POW as Rune points, an initiate can learn more Rune spells, and further, by becoming an initiate in an associated cult and sacrificing POW points, he can learn the Rune spells of that cult too. These new Rune spells are separate, as is the pool of Rune points used to cast them, that is, an initiate of multiple cults maintains a pool of Rune points for each cult. Once a player declares his character’s intent to cast one of the Rune spells, a successful roll against one of the Rune Affinities associated with the cult is required to cast it.

Unlike Spirit magic, which powered by Magic Points can be cast from one day to the next because they regenerate, Rune magic and Rune points are a limited resource. Once an initiate has cast a Rune spell and used Rune points, they do not regenerate. They can be replenished though, this requiring the initiate to participate in an act of worship at a temple, sanctified area, or other holy place on a holy day. This is for initiates though, and Rune Priests and Rune Lords of a cult can lead religious ceremonies and make sacrifices to more readily replenish their Rune points. What this means is that Rune magic is a powerful, but finite resource and should not be readily squandered.

RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha presents some twenty-one different cults, from Argan Argar, Babeester Gor, and Chalana Arroy to Yelm, Yelmalio, and Yinkin, including the Seven Mothers of the Lunar Empire. Their descriptions include their holy days, requirements to become an initiate, cult skills, Spirit magic, and Rune magic, as well as enchantments and associated cults. There is of course, much more to be written about each and every one of these cults—at least for these new rules—but there is more than sufficient information here to ground a player and his character into the cult and put said character on the path to becoming either a Rune Priest or Rune Lord, should that be his wish.

Behind all this are the Runes themselves. Besides powering a character’s Rune magic, Runes—the Elemental Runes—have a strong influence upon both character and game. They influence a character’s personality, so that a character with a high score or affinity in the Air Rune is “…(P)assionate, violent, proud, and unpredictable.”, all common personality descriptions of natives to Sartar because of their worship of Orlanth. They also augment particular skills, in this case, the Sense Assassin, Sense Chaos, and Smell skills, as well as the Manipulation skill category and the Sword skill. Each Rune also has colours, organs, metals, and animal types associated with it, though these are more for roleplaying purposes than direct mechanical benefit. Particular Runes are also required to join particular cults—for example, Harmony and Movement for Issaries, the God of Communication and Trade and Air and Beast for Yinkin, the Shadowcat God, and then once a character is an initiate, the associated Runes are rolled to cast Rune magic.

Lastly, besides equipment, RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha discusses what a character can do between adventures. This is not a game or world in which a character is necessarily going to be going on adventure after adventure. They may perhaps adventure once per season, with like the Winter Phase in Pendragon – Chivalric Roleplaying in Arthur’s Britain, period when the characters have a chance to rest, reflect, and undertake other duties. In Glorantha, this is the Sacred Time at the end of the year. Mechanically, a player will be rolling for his character’s Experience Checks for Skill, Rune, and Passion rolls made on adventures throughout the year, but the character will be participating in holy ceremonies, collecting the harvest, attending to family matters, awaiting the omens for the coming year, and even going on a Heroquest. The latter though, is the subject of another supplement. It is also the time when mundane skills like Manage Household and Farm come into play—as well as those other skills key to a character’s Occupation—as they help determine the family income for the year to come. These rules serve to push a campaign onwards, to give it and the world of Glorantha the sense of Time which separates it from the Gods.

Physically, RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha is a well written, easy to read set of rules. There are lots of rule examples throughout the book, but as we move from chapter to chapter, rule to rule, the game is brought to live by Vasana’s Saga, a first-person telling of the Hero Wars, as told by Vasana Emaldoring, a Wind Lord companion of Prince Argrath. Famously, RuneQuest 2—or RuneQuest Classic—did this through Rurik Runespear, but Vasana’s is a longer tale, more involving and enjoyable. Plus, they do an entertaining job of showing off the rules too.

In terms of presentation, RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha is an imposing book right from the start with the cover, which depicts Vasana and her companions in the company of Orlanth himself! Inside though, the art direction is somewhat uneven. Some of the older, black and white art looks a little out of place, but the full colour illustrations are excellent, nicely conveying the fact that the world of Glorantha is anything other than that of Western Europe—in places it feels Ancient Greek, in others Middle Eastern, and in others Indian. The artwork also does a nice job of depicting both the magical and the mundane, as well as showing how people accept magic as part of their world. Unfortunately, there is the matter of the book’s cartography, which though pretty, is often indistinct and difficult to read. Hopefully, a future supplement will rectify this with better maps.

RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha feels as if the designers have gone back to the source—in this case, RuneQuest 2—and developed it, updating it and presenting it anew into RuneQuest 2.5. Their labour of love has thrown out over thirty years of RuneQuest history whilst still incorporating some of the better advances from its design descendants and associated family of games. The result is that unlike in previous iterations of RuneQuest, where the objective of the game, often implied rather than explicit, was to quest for Runes and so gain access to the gods, the objective in RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha is to quest with Runes and to confirm and strengthen the existence of the gods. RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha is the definitive set of mechanics for playing ‘RuneQuest’ and using its Runes to explore both the myths and world of Glorantha during the Hero Wars—and it is great see it at Chaosium, Inc. where it began.